My Shanghai Visitation 2010

Day 1, 24 march - Arrival

It is unusual that I get to sleep in on the day of my flight, have some time to complete a half-done task of packing, and yet catch my flight while the sky is still lighted. My flight was scheduled in the middle of the day at 4.30pm; not a very popular time to take a flight. As I would later realise, it wasn’t such a good idea to take the flight to Shanghai at this timing either.

Everyone had already boarded the plane and prepared to go, but the flight was grounded by a sudden heavy downpour. I saw the raindrops like a curtain outside, as the China Eastern airplane moved round in circles along the runway, waiting for the rain to tone down before it could take off. This was like a flight delay but worse; being stuck to the economy class seat while waiting it out.

By the time the flight landed in Shanghai Pudong airport, it was already 10.20pm - no clock adjustments needed. As I was forewarned, it would take almost 2 hours to get from the airport to Vicky Luo's place. By then it would not be a nice time to arrive at their place; i would expect to enter a darkened house, her parents sleeping.

Upon claiming my baggage, I made an expensive phone call to Vicky using my Singaporean line, charged at international call rates. She advised me to take the airport bus, which would be only a tenth of the cost than if I took a taxi instead. However, the ride would be longer, and the terminal is still a considerable distance away from her house.
I chose the bus. It’s already so late anyways; being a little later won’t make much difference.

That bus i caught happened to be the last bus. Lucky me. The ride was a squeeze; more people came up, and all seats taken. I thought I could have a seat to place my bulky luggage... it ended up in between the seats' leg space so that someone else could sit beside me - at the cost of much discomfort for both of us. Among the passengers, they were talking loudly in Shanghainese dialect - sounding rather harsh and rapidly spoken, not much to my liking. When all the airport passengers had been taken on the bus, the bus attendant proceeded to collect bus fares; a clipboard in hand displaying stacks of differently priced tickets like mini post-its, tearing them out for each commuter as she collected the fares one by one. My ticket was to the terminal, the furthest and most expensive destination, costing me 24 Yuan.

I spent the ride looking outside the window and observing the landscape passed by - whatever of it that can be seen in the dark of night. For half an hour, the drive on the expressway took me by nothing but 4-lane roads, bridges, and an extensive network of overlapping highways. There were massive sky bridges that were at least 6 storeys high, to allow another 2 layers of curvy highway to cut under it. The scene was like an extreme race course. That was all i could see, illuminated by the widely-spaced dim orange streetlights. There was nothing but plain land and rivers on both sides of the roads; save for occasional landed houses sighted a distance off in the background.

Going onto a highway, my view was completely blocked by a very long row of partitions along the edges of the highway - and after several minutes of seeing what seemed like a blank green screen outside the window, the partition stopped, and we emerged in the middle of tall buildings and high-rise residences.

Indeed, the buildings were all tall and closely clustered, towering over both sides of the highway, but little did i consider the scene to be a vibrant city. I saw seemingly unpleasant apartments, like a building designed to cramp together as many rooms as possible to make solution for a big squeeze; much like the old residences in the New York City suburb. I saw old shophouses alongside with towering flats just beside them. Buildings were of all different shapes, sizes, age, design and colour, unevenly spaced, facing different directions, all adding on to one disorderly pattern. It could be inferred that Shanghai has been developing all too fast for its urban development authorities to catch up with and provide some proper landscape planning.

It was no doubt a long ride, but my mind was too occupied by thoughts to let me notice. I watched new passengers board and more passengers alight as we came to each stop. Soon as the clusters of skyscrapers vanished from the scenery and we entered the suburbs, the bus turned in and came to a stop at a small dark car park. There was construction going on at the side, and not even a place for a bus to park. Though it looked nothing like one, it was obvious enough that this was indeed the terminal - There was just me and 2 other passengers left on the bus, and the driver beckoned us to alight.

I gathered my belongings and looked outside at the uninviting surroundings and the slight drizzle; I was suddenly surged with uncertainty about how I would make the second part of the journey from here. In a way, I felt lost. As i came down the bus, i spotted someone standing in the rain, shielded by a purple umbrella. The umbrella lifted up to reveal a familiar face. . . It was Vicky.

The Luo Residence

The remaining travel to Vicky’s place was unexpectedly provided for – her dad had generously come with the car to pick me up from the terminal, even at that unearthly hour. Not knowing how Shanghainese address their elders, I decided to use Singaporean style; calling him shu shu, or uncle. And so it stayed that way.
I climbed into the Volkswagen’s cushioned seats and closed the door, feeling warm and cosy, away from the rain and cold outside.

I had imagined that I would have so much to talk about with Vicky, but it turned out we were both rather lost for words; other than intermittent short topics each followed by moments of awkward silence. To ease off the awkwardness, i would spend the moments of silence observing the suburb we drove through, drenched in an eerie gloom. Vicky passed me a can of what was supposedly congee... canned congee. But it was sweet and lumpy in texture; somewhat like Cheng Tng instead. I slowly sipped at the slimy gooey sauce and munched on the lumps of rice – I wasn’t really enjoying it, but I was hungry, so anything goes.

It didn’t take us long to reach their home. And what I saw of their house was a major shock to me. In this case it wasn’t the best for last – what I saw first were the most shocking. Entering the residence compound, there were several blocks of low rise flats around, with more down the road. Uncle parked the car and then helped with my luggage, bringing it up to a rusty metal gate with flaking-off green paint, like those of old abandoned shophouses.

“This is your house?” I asked Vicky rhetorically, still refusing to come to terms with it. The answer came as soon as I asked.
Uncle put the key to the gate and cranked it open, and all I saw ahead were shadowy outlines of motorbikes and scooters parked in the darkness of the small dusty basement, in which the lights would only go on motion-activated. When it did, and knowing that the house was all the way up on the 6th floor, the first thing I looked for was the lift. But nothing looked anything like a lift.
“There is no lift?” I asked.
“What lift? This is just a low-rise building!” Vicky replied sharply.
The only way up was through a narrow staircase, with occasional boxes left along the sides by the residents. I counted the storeys by counting how many times I would have to walk almost into pitch darkness before the lights would activate. Had I not done that, it would have seemed I climbed nine storeys before I reached the sixth.

The door of the house opened to a varnished wooden floor; and the dining table was straight ahead. The living room and kitchen were to the left and right respectively. The chairs and tables in the living room and dining area were all antique carved wood. Uncle welcomed me in with cottoned slippers to keep my feet warm. The slippers made much noise for each step treading on the flooring, which was hollow underneath judging from the sound of it. Even in the house, the air was chilly, such that one would still have to be fully covered up when indoors.

Moments later, Vicky’s mom emerged from the master bedroom to welcome me. Seeing her partially dazed expression, she must have fallen asleep during the long wait for my late arrival – she calmly denied so when asked.
From the first day, I was treated with great hospitality. The very first gesture was of course fetching me from the terminal. They stayed up really late just to welcome me, briefly showed me around the house and the room where I would be staying in - It was originally Vicky’s room, which Auntie ordered her to give up to me. The room was all tidied up and table space cleared, a brand new bed sheet and blanket never used before was spread on the excessively spacious queen size bed; add on a thick furry bed cover. They were constantly concerned over whether I was cold – thankfully I have a good tolerance for cold.
As is a deeply rooted culture of Chinese hosts, they asked me if I was hungry – indeed I was, but too shy to say yes. Uncle further insisted, but I opted to eat the canned porridge I had half eaten in the car.
“The porridge is not nice; don’t eat it. Wait a while, I’ll cook you some tang yuan.” He responded. And so there he was, cooking a big bowl of tang yuan – rice flour balls filled with black sesame and peanut sauce – for me and Vicky for supper at 2am. The delicious, steaming tang yuan warmed my body, but his gesture warmed my heart.

Earlier during the car ride, Uncle kept silent most of the time, occasionally exchanging a few words with Vicky in shanghainese. It was hard to even make a first impression of him like that. I also had only known Auntie for a brief moment on the first day. But right then I already knew they were really warm-hearted people.